"The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political
rights of all its inhabitants irrespective of religion ... it will guarantee freedom
of religion and conscience." - May 1948)

Last week, months of nomination deliberations for four positions that will soon become vacant on Israel's Supreme Court came to an end. Israel's Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, the token secular representative of the Zionist Orthodox Jewish Home party, chaired the nominations committee.

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Last week at a national rabbinic conference, Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef declared that rabbis should warn the Israeli public that in the event of legal disputes, they should take their cases to the rabbinical courts, rather than to Israel's civil courts.

Hiddush has repeatedly challenged the continued monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate and rabbinic courts over matters of personal status of all Jews in Israel. Last week, we saw one of the most shocking and deplorable examples of why this authority should urgently be withdrawn.